The Two Mccoys

Collage And Montage: A Renowned Husband And Wife Team Talk About Design And The Elements Of Blending

April 09, 1995

Award-winning designers Katherine and Michael McCoy are a team in every facet of their lives: wife and husband, partners in the McCoy & McCoy design firm and, for more than 20 years, co-chairs of the design department at the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Graphic design is Katherine's focus (she is president of the American Center for Design in Chicago), while Michael, an industrial designer, is renowned for his work with Knoll International, Steelcase and Philips Electronics (he is also a partner with Dale Fahnstrom in the Chicago-based Fahnstrom/McCoy Design Consultants). The two McCoys collaborate on interior design projects and both have been the subject of numerous articles. They will be teaching at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology next year. Victoria Lautman talked with them about their views on design in the '90s.

VICTORIA LAUTMAN: Eclecticism seems to be the guiding light of interior design at the moment. Have you observed any fundamental shifts in the '90s lifestyle that might account for this?

KATHERINE MCCOY: It's actually a key discussion in the design field at the moment, although we don't use "eclectic" to describe what's being done. Collage might be a better term, or montage, because they imply elements have been chosen for particular reasons.

MICHAEL MCCOY: In fact, there are some important cultural trends that are all linked together. For one thing, there's the end of "massification" of society in general, with subcultural and multicultural groups identifying themselves clearly, compared with a decade ago. The result is a dominant move toward diversity and pluralism.

Also, there's the culture of "sampling," as in music, which is combining pre-existing elements in new ways--not unlike the current collage approach to dressing by combining different elements from a variety of designers or incorporating used, vintage clothing. This also relates to directions in the fine arts, with postmodernism relying on pastiche, quotations and appropriation.

KM: Postmodern architecture uses the same terminology. It all signifies the end of modernism and the idea that only one solution applies for all time and all people. Now there's more interest in singular expression and the desire to draw on the richness that exists in the world, which is widely available through the media. New expressions are very often just the remixing of earlier expressions, and it's a way for people to reassert their identities in a world that's becoming more impersonal. Design is just another manifestation of these same movements.

VL: How is this "collage/montage" direction reflected in your own work?

MM: It's there, but not in obvious ways. For instance, in something like the Bulldog Chair 1/8designed with Dale Fahnstrom and David Van den Branden for Knoll International 3/8, you see an ergonomic chair in which we try to represent some qualities of the past, particularly the old banker's chairs of the 1930s with their generosity, comfort and familiarity. In our high-technology product design, we try to use the appropriate form to "explain" the technology. A portable stereo 1/8designed with Dale Fahnstrom and David Van den Branden 3/8 needed to communicate both its convenience and power, so it's got a built-in handle, but the speakers are prominent towers.

KM: We don't design by putting together period styles for their pure visual character, but rather we look at what those periods communicate and how they can help us interpret information or technology. In my graphics, there's a foundation of Bauhaus rationalism and functionalism, with the grid structure for systematic organization. But added to that are layers of cultural and stylistic expressions that constantly shift, depending on the project and the audience.

MM: It's more evident in our homes. We have a place in Colorado designed to reflect the region's history by evoking old mining structures. But our interest in Victorian cottages and old, weathered log cabins also plays a part in the design.

KM: And our loft in Chicago is basically "Mies Meets Prairie Style."

VL: How do you go about teaching this mix 'n' match approach to the next generation?

MM: We don't set out to teach it specifically. But we ask students to look to their own history, their own cultures and vision, instead of simply asking them to adopt a strict formula for design. Modernism basically dictated, "We don't care who you are or where you came from, these are the forms you will use." We're more interested in starting from the standpoint of design as interpretation, that it does matter who you are, and that it will color and affect you work.

KM: Context and idiosyncrasies automatically result when you encourage students to look for sources and references within themselves and the world around them.